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Nintendo of America's executive vice president of sales and marketing, Cammie Dunaway, was recently asked if the Nintendo DSi would be region-locked. "I believe that just as you can currently buy a DS in Japan and use it here in the U.S., that you should be able to do that with DSi." Dunway replied.

“DSi software (software that is only compatible with DSi) is region locked, eg: European DSi software can only be played on European DSi consoles,” a Nintendo spokesperson has told CVG.

“Nintendo DS software however is region free so you can play any DS software on DSi from any region. You can also browse the Internet on your DSi wherever you are in the world and exchange your photos with friends from around the world.”

“DSi is region locked because DSi embeds net communication functionality within itself and we are intending to provide net services specifically tailored for each region. Also because we are including parental control functionality for Nintendo DSi and each region has its unique age limit made by different independent.”

It seems like only DSi-software is region locked. Users of the DS and DS Lite don't have to worry about anything. According to Nintendo, all DSi-software is DSiWare (downloadable software), but the article at CVG also talks about cartridge-based software which is also regionlocked. However, this will only apply to DSi-only software. Software that runs on the DS and DS Lite will not be region locked, even when playing it on the DSi.

And yet I see a lot of people bitching about this region locking, why? They're only region locking the games that will only work on a DSi.

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Because handhelds never had region locking, cause they didn't depend on NTSC / PAL screens so technically there never was need for it, why start doing so now?
Because people want to be able to play any game from any region without needing to buy a Japanese DSi to play that Japanese game that never got to US/Europe and a EU/US DSi to play the rest of the games in English.
Because in Jap/US everything is cheaper. People don't like to pay extra for 4 translations to languages they don't speak anyways.
Because the DSi comes out in Japan within a month, while Europe has to wait for about half a year. Some people want to import the device so they can play it already, but want to play the DSi-exclusive games in their own language as well.
Because Europe will probably get most of their DSi-exclusive games half a year later then the other regions as well, as Nintendo always does...

And yet I see a lot of people bitching about this region locking, why? They're only region locking the games that will only work on a DSi.

Click to expand...

Because handhelds never had region locking, cause they didn't depend on NTSC / PAL screens so technically there never was need for it, why start doing so now?
Because people want to be able to play any game from any region without needing to buy a Japanese DSi to play that Japanese game that never got to US/Europe and a EU/US DSi to play the rest of the games in English.
Because in Jap/US everything is cheaper. People don't like to pay extra for 4 translations to languages they don't speak anyways.
Because the DSi comes out in Japan within a month, while Europe has to wait for about half a year. Some people want to import the device so they can play it already, but want to play the DSi-exclusive games in their own language as well.
Because Europe will probably get most of their DSi-exclusive games half a year later then the other regions as well, as Nintendo always does...

^ Probably one of those

Click to expand...

Let's see...

Because handhelds never had region locking, cause they didn't depend on NTSC / PAL screens so technically there never was need for it, why start doing so now?
Sega Nomad, was region locked for some reason.

Because people want to be able to play any game from any region without needing to buy a Japanese DSi to play that Japanese game that never got to US/Europe and a EU/US DSi to play the rest of the games in English.

Because you can legally download japanese VC titles on your European Wii, right?

Because in Jap/US everything is cheaper. People don't like to pay extra for 4 translations to languages they don't speak anyways.

Sadly true, but again, the region lock only seems to apply to downloads right now.
Because the DSi comes out in Japan within a month, while Europe has to wait for about half a year. Some people want to import the device so they can play it already, but want to play the DSi-exclusive games in their own language as well.
Okay, that's legit, but even then it's japanese downloads on japanese systems, english downloads on english systems.

Because Europe will probably get most of their DSi-exclusive games half a year later then the other regions as well, as Nintendo always does...
But again, these are region locked downloads.

The problem is, people are complaining about DOWNLOADS being region locked, we're not certain if there will be cartridge exclusives for the DSi, and if those will be region locked right now.

If there will be region locked cartridges, then we have a legitimate complaint, because downloads usually have DRM to ensure they only work on the system that downloaded them.

I still hope the DSi fails hard. Downloadable content......if the DSi is successful, it will likely lead them to no longer providing carts (and therefore ROMs), but EVERYTHING will have to be downloaded....for a fee, and region locked to boot. DO NOT WANT!
Fail DSi, fail badly.

Region locking doesn't have much, if anything to do with NTSC/PAL.
It really has to do with publishers wanting control over how/when certain titles are released and to keep the regional arms of multinational corporations in control over those release (there's no real reason for DVD regions for example except to allow each regional publisher to release movies on their schedule).

As for the virtual store some games will never see release in another region or are considered inappropriate for that region (I can think of a few Japanese DS games that would never be sold in the U.S., even with the rating system). As for Europeans, you cats get socialized health care, America gets video games (and I very wonderfully, get both). Were I ever to live in Europe, I'd be importing left and right anyway.

As for there not being ROMs, that's probably a very good thing for Nintendo and it sounds pretty jack-assy to fault them for that. But I'm sure it will be vaguely the same principal as iPod classic software and those can be bootlegged (and I'm sure there would be far more interest in doing so if all the iPod c games didn't. suck)

Quoted from QUOTE:

Because the DSi comes out in Japan within a month, while Europe has to wait for about half a year. Some people want to import the device so they can play it already, but want to play the DSi-exclusive games in their own language as well.

Click to expand...

I want unicorns to serve me pizzas made of strawberries and gummi bears.
I want every game, in a language I speak, and I want it now!!!
Either wait for the American system and get stuck with all the American releases or get the Japanese version as soon as it comes out and learn to read and write Japanese. I don't think you have a lot of other choices (I mean, the number of European produced games I want to play is holding pretty steady at zero).

Also games aren't more expensive in Europe (just) because of extra translations. A lot of U.S. games now come with Spanish and French. They're mostly more expensive because of the tax system in a lot of European countries, if I'm not entirely mistaken.

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